[Klepton]

so august 1st was the end of my second year as a poker player. sadly, it was the end of my first year of being a winning player.

i was a losing player at poker for an entire year. i thought i was a winning player. i read HPFAP, but didn't understand it at all. i would go to chumash casino with my roomate and we would play 4-8 with 100 bucks. one bad beat later and 2 missed flops and i would have 2 BB left. then raise any ace allin and lose cuz the flops were 4-6 handed.

i lost about 3000 and owed my roomate about 1500 (he was a small winning player and could afford to laon me money).

I started doing things I'm not proud of. I stole, a lot. Mainly bikes left unlocked at random places on campus. i'd resell em to friends for 30-40 bucks. that year i stole in excess of 40 bikes.

I would scrape together any money possible and drive alone to the casino, lose in about 2 hours, and go back home. sometimes it would take me 8 hours to lose. i would come back at 4-5 in the morning and not go to class.

then i got kicked outta school.

In april, i found a site caled futureme.org and sent myself a letter for one year later. Here was the letter:

[ QUOTE ]
(this message was composed on Tue, Apr 6, 2004)

Dear FutureMe,
I hope you're succesful, because you were just kicked outta college. You have 2 jobs right now and are trying to get back in. I'm trying to quit poker right now, cuz as you remember it was devistating to you.

[/ QUOTE ]

summer came, and i had no future. i put 100 bucks into party, and played 2-4 with 50 bucks. a week later it was gone. i re-bought again. ran in up to 500, then lost it. this time, i rebought and said i would only play 5+1s.

3 months later i'm 4 tabling the 55's and i have about 2000. i pay back my friend what i owe him and continue playing.

then i find twoplustwo.com
(actually shant found it)

i go look at mid-high stakes and read a post by a guy called mike l. it's a 100-200 hand. he river check-raise bluffs with Ace high and is called by pocket 4s on a board of 7733Q.

i fell in love

i lurked for about 2 months before making an account. i named myself klepton to remind myself of the wrong ideals i once had. by this time i had read SSH and had about 2000. i started 4 tabling 3-6 with no reads, no PT. i read almost every single small stakes hand possible, and read every mid-high stakes hand. every other post talked about the glory of the 15/30, and then i found PT.

on august 1st i started a pokercharts account and started to log everything. all i knew was i had to get ot the 15-30 as fast as possible, especially with a new post every other day asking the question "is the 15-30 drying up [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]??"

january hit and my roll was 6k. i started playing 5-10. worst 2 months of my life. all i did was grit my teeth at the screen and playing 1500 hand sessions to get un-stuck.

by march i had 10k, and decided it was time for the 15-30. my first 1500 hands of 15-30 i lost 4000. i opened up PT and literally went over every hand i played to see what i was doing wrong. aside from one hand where i bluff raised the river on a missed flush draw, i was playing perfectly.

by may i had 22k, and then the party 30-60 tables opened up.

cha-ching.

so now it's august, and i'm trying to think about the things i've done to get here. i don't post as many hands as pokerbob, and i don't analyze extremely deeply as jason_t does, i just do whatever i can to learn as much as i can from the game.

and yes, i ran extremely well. the first 20 days of may was one entire winning streak. am i the second coming of bicyclekick? no. but i did move up.

and that's why i made this post.

move up.

if you have 500bb at your current level, take 50BB and two-table a higher level. hell, take 25bb and take a shot at a juicy table. the play between levels only increases slightly. sure there's a difference between 3-6 and 15-30, but there's not a gigantic difference between 2-4 and 3-6, or 10-20 and 15-30. the only difference is your confidence.

now i'm not advocating playing out of your bankroll. and i'm not saying if you're a 2-4 player take 750 and one table 15-30. i'm saying the minute you spend about 2000 hands at a level you win be immediatly comfortable. even if you are losing, you come onto 2p2, post a couple hands, no matter if you played them horribly or perfect, you're confidence is gonna boost tremendously

shant started playing 2-4 when i was at the 3-6 level. one month ago, shant was at 5-10 SH. he was on the worst run of his life...about 2 months of break even poker. but rakeback is nice. he had enough to take a shot at 10-20. his confidence is so high now he doens't even complain about anything anymore. he's playing 15-30. in 2 months he'll be at 30-60.

move up. take shots. figure out what makes these games harder. the experience of losing 50bb at a higher level will help you in the long run.

i'm happy that i didn't quit poker. i'm happy that i moved up and took shots. i'm happy i'm not a klepto anymore.